Fear
 

We all know it's a mess, but what can be done to fix it or to at least keep fear-able classes from being completely invincible?

I know it's not an elegant (or real) solution, but this is what I've done in the past on the server I run on my LAN. I just cut the max duration of all the fears to be in line with stuns of the same level. With the recast time that a lot of fears have, it keeps them useful without making the caster invincible.

Thank you for that idea.

How do you do that? Where is the setting?

There is a table with spell info in the database. Find the spell you want to alter and match it up with the stun of the appropriate level etc.

Ahh ok. Thought it may be a rule or a global variable somewhere. WHY I thought that I do not know. Not enough caffeine (yet)? ;)

Thanks!

The spells table is not what the emu uses for spell data. AFAIK, that table is from one of the tools, but isn't used by the emulator. You'd need to modify the spells_en.txt on the server. Of course the users' spells would show different data if you don't distribute the spells_en.txt to them.

Then that is not an option as I do not wish to break other servers.

Guess we're back to praying for fear to actually be fixed or at least something changed to make it workable in the emu code...

Well of course one option is to not give players the spells. If you're willing to recompile it should be simple to remove the stun from the spell effect. Just search spell_effects.cpp for SE_Fear and comment out the Stun()

If you wanted to modify the spell file you could modify the duration without having to give the file to the players, if you added a recast however the players would somehow need to be able to have access to a new spell file or it would not show correctly.

Hey what about a rewrite of Fear logic so that it works based off of LOS instead? That way, no path files (that I seriously doubt anyone even remembers how to make) would be required and it could work anywhere there's a .map file :)

Since so many classes depend on fear for their "income" I'd think this would be an important thing to at least think about?

Typically pretty expensive but I've had an idea I've been tossing around in my head I wanna try some time similar to this that I can't really figure out how to explain.

I imagine it would be... am thinking this can also do worlds of good for fleeing as well.

I SO appreciate your replies, KLS.

Thanks!

Been thinking about this.

The expense might not be so bad considering that only a handful of mobs would be in a fear state on any one server at any one time. It just might be worth it if it makes those classes enjoyable and eliminates the exploit of being able to kill mobs that cannot fight back.

I also think it would be important to make sure the feared mob is yelling for help too (at least a switch for it) so that assists can happen as it's running... which is a legit danger of using fear indiscriminately.